ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai signed MoU for value addition to banana biomass.

Dr. S. K. Shukla, Director, ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mr. Saneesh K M, Thrissur, Kerala for technology mentoring and incubation for the project titled ‘Preparation of value-added products using banana leaf and pseudostem’ on 19th June 2023. The MoU was signed in the presence of Dr. A.J. Shaikh, former Director of the Institute. The incubatee, a farmer based in Kerala, is interested to develop protocols for the preparation of eco-friendly kitchen utensils from banana leaf and pseudostem.

The banana pseudostem is normally discarded after the harvesting of fruit bunch and great volume of it is generated in banana growing regions. Very minimal quantity of banana pseudostem is used for extraction of fibres and in manufacture of handmade papers by pulping. Due to problems in logistics and lack of scalable technologies, the full potential of banana pseudostem could not be achieved. This issues will be addressed by the Incubatee with the technical mentoring from the scientists of ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai.

The scientific advisory team members Dr. N. Vigneshwaran, Dr. A.K. Bharimalla and Dr. Ajinath Dukare were present during this MoU signing ceremony.